The hunt for sustainable plastic solutions

IT’S HARD to imagine life without plastic. It’s everywhere – from toothbrushes to cell phones and laptops. In 2023, more than 300 million tonnes of plastics were produced worldwide from the by-products of the oil and gas industry. About 97 per cent of these are non-biodegradable. This is higher than the weight of the global human population.

Every day, the world dumps 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastics into oceans, rivers and lakes, disrupting marine life and threatening human health. If we don’t respond, stocks of accumulated plastics in the aquatic environment will more than triple from 140 million tonnes in 2019, to 493 million tonnes in 2060.

Over 90 per cent of the commodities that use plastic are made from seven different varieties, of which only two can be recycled. Others will end up in a landfill and take up to 500 years to degrade completely. Although the complete degradation of plastic results in a greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide, the more pertinent danger comes from microplastics.